My Challenge to Make a Marble Run Machine - The Tray

Creation is a process of repeated failures as well as successes. I wonder how often I have made mistakes on my marble run machine. One of the issues with my marble run machine is the balls sometimes drop from the rail. I will fix the issue, not to drop the balls, but I don't think it will be easy to fix it 100 per cent. Then, I decided to make a tray to catch the balls falling from the rail. It can also be used for keeping the extra balls.

My husband, Junichi, gave me some beautiful timber, so I glued them together and made them a piece of the board. Here is the picture of gluing timber.

I held it with lots of clamps tightly and left it for a while. This is the board after being unwrapped. Amazingly, these colours are natural.

For use as the ball holder, it needs to be easy to get the balls. My idea was to drill a hole in the corner of the board. I'm going to make a wooden peg later. It must be convenient to pull the peg when I want the balls, the balls dropping from the hole.
Luckily, Juno gave me the idea to tilt the board, and I adopted it.


The board tilts 3 degrees and is attached to the marble run machine board. There is a groove bottom of the tray, and it's also tilted, so the balls go into the hole smoothly. It's awkward to make something tilted, but I somehow made it. I made two brackets that were also tilted.

Milling the board's surface with the CNC router is shown in the picture below.

I glued two brackets on the surface of the tray.
As it progresses, finding the room that can attach the brackets becomes more difficult.

Anyway, I could attach the tray as I wanted. The balls rotate smoothly toward the hole. 

 

 

For now, a small piece of scrap wood is placed over the hole to replace the plug.

Before ending today's blog, I wrote down the name of the timber I used for the tray for people interested in timber.

My Challenge to Make a Marble Run Machine - A Little Mountain Part

I've been making various types of parts for the marble run machine, and the most difficult part to make is the spiral-shaped parts. 

Despite the difficulty, I was determined to make a part resembling a mountain. I somehow drew a picture of the mountain-shaped part. 

 

 

Thinking of the angle of the rail, it couldn't be a steep mountain, so I changed the angle from 3 to 5 degrees. While it ended up looking more like a gentle hill, I thought it was still acceptable.

The drawing was just a flat rail. If I cut the rail with the CNC router, it would have become like a mosquito coil. I thought of the assistance of my husband, Junichi, who excels in these kinds of tasks. He skillfully reworked the G code, and finally, we had a code that could create the mountain shape. I'm grateful to Junichi for his help.

 

 

The ball is planned to fall from the top of the mountain part and may jump or fall off at the top. To prevent the balls from dropping off, I intend to attach five bamboo sticks to the summit. The bamboo sticks will be related to the part that I'm going to make from now on, so I have yet to stick them on.

I'm happy with the result so far as the balls roll smoothly along to the mountain.

The next step would be making a part above the mountain. I won't challenge a spiral part anymore. I want to make something more simple and fun. Something fun and easy to make would be ideal, but ideas take time.

What shall I make next?

My Challenge to Make a Marble Run Machine - An Ant's Nest

I've finished making one of the parts of my marble run machine.

 

I call it an ant's nest. It has a long twisting ditch that balls can roll down and looks like an ant's nest.

Making the ditch, I used a ball-shaped bit. This bit was good for making a ditch for balls. Adjusting the depth of bits can make a long hole so the balls don't drop off and can be seen outside.
 

However, there was one thing I had to be careful about. The edge of the ditch would become sharp and easy to be damaged. Therefore, I drilled a hole with an ordinary bit that was a narrow diameter than the balls first, then a ball-shaped bit to prevent cracking.

Firstly, I made a trial version of the ant's nest with MDF. It worked well, but I wanted to be more fond of the shape of the ditch. Therefore, I changed the shape of the ditch.

Here is the one I made in the end.

The balls roll well, but I wanted the last curve to be more gentle if I could because they run too fast when they come out of the ant's nest.

After passing by the ant's nest, the balls go to a trumpet-shaped tray. The balls jumped out of the tray about one in ten times, so I prepared the second tray. The second tray has a height of 15 mm, enough to prevent the balls from jumping over. The balls that go into the tray rotate well, and it's fun to watch.

I've finished making parts of nearly half of the marble run machine at this stage. I thought I'd spent lots of time, yet it's still only half done. How long will it take to be finished?
There is still a long way to go.

 

My Challenge to Make a Marble Run Machine - Unexpected Changes

I stopped making a marble run machine for about a couple of months and found a few changes. Balls drop off from somewhere a lot. It didn't happen before. At least, I can think of two reasons. When I reset the rails, the positions changed slightly, or the rails or gears dried, and their sizes changed.

However, the timber I used was all dried enough. The percentage of moisture was the same as the timber used for puzzles. Probably, when I screwed each part, the positions were a little different from before.

I scrutinized the movement of the balls to find where they dropped from. It wasn't easy to find out because balls dash. Maybe, I should use a camera and take a video.

There was a good thing that I didn't expect.
I made a tray that can catch the balls from the trumpet-shaped part I wrote about in the previous blog post. This tray was made for getting the balls from the trumpet-shaped part. However, it also catches the balls dropping from different positions. Those balls that are supposed to be dropped on the floor can be caught and go back to the rail. It was not what I originally intended, but useful. Here is the tray. I scraped it inside more than I wanted, but it worked well.

There are still issues that remain. I must specify where the balls drop. I may have to remove and partially rebuild the three big gears in the worst case. I don't want to do it, but probably, I have to.

If something goes wrong, I realize how hard it is to make things although it is exciting when it moves as I expected. That is why I cannot stop making it.

I have been busy, and tomorrow will be busier, so I will start making it next week. I hope to find the reason for the dropping balls and fix the issue.

My First Challenge - The Lathe

I have been away from making marble runs for a long time, and it is time to start again. 

I made a little part shaped like a trumpet. The function is to catch a ball that jumps out of the looped rail. (I have written about the looped rail in the previous blog post: https://puzzlesense.blogspot.com/2023/02/my-challenge-to-make-marble-run-machine_21.html)

The looped rail looks like a roller coaster, and it is pretty fun to look at. Making a shape-like trumpet requires the use of a lathe.

Well, I wondered what to do. I have never used the lathe to curb wood, so I watched some YouTube videos and learnt how to use it. My husband, Juno, found nice timber. It was New Guinea Walnut. He cut it to a length of about 10 cm (3.9 in) and cut off every four edges, and made it an octagon bar. It was because it should have been many jobs to cut square timber into a cylinder shape.

Juno and I made sure again how to fix the timber on the lathe by watching YouTube videos. Then, set the tool rest, wear the face mask, and we are ready to curb.

In conclusion, it was not as difficult as I imagined. People who are professionals in using lathes might think my way of curbing was not good, but I was happy with the result; at least I could curb the timber in the shape I wanted with no injury.

Here it is, the ball catcher!
I like the grain; it is beautiful.

The next step should be fixing the ball catcher onto the marble run machine board, yet I still need to design the rail connecting with the catcher.
Even though I could not fix the ball catcher to the marble run machine, I could not wait to see catching jumping balls. Therefore, I held the ball catcher with my hand and tried.

Here is the video. It looks good.

All right, let's design the rails after the balls go through the ball catcher.